From Kirkus Reviews
A second collection of verse by Bender (The Writers Journal: 40 Contemporary Authors and Their Journals, 1997), who seems intent on proving that less can, indeed, be less. It should be stated at the outset that Bender is a good writer, as most all of the poems in this collection demonstrate. She seems able to regulate the rhythms of her lines easily and with a steady precision, has a decent command of simile (The hours in intensive care you will watch / clouds sheet the sky like hospital linen / and hear the chirp of heart monitors like crickets) and relies on a refreshingly conventional imagery (Ambulances in Harvard Square, young girl / hugging her guy, old green sedan / hitched to a tow truck, crowd gathered thick as the one last night for street musicians) that serves her old-fashioned brand of naturalism quite nicely. But unfortunately all of this is employed in the service of works whose inherent triteness can be inferred from their very titlesWatching My Husband Meet His Birth Mother, While Buying a Birthday Card for My Son Whos Just Gone to College, At the Ethnic Cemeteries, Roslyn, Washington, After a Day as Poet-in-Residenceand amply demonstrated with a few lines (Beyond the beachs white thighs and the waves / swell of desire, there was moonlight on calm water). Theres an earnest directness in Benders attempt to poeticize daily life, but for the most part her world remains as mundane at the finish as it was at the start. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
After Crossing The Desert
After Learning You've Moved To My City
After Love
After We Collected Treasures From The Beach And Forests
At The Ethnic Cemeteries..... After A Day As Poet-in-residence
Burying The Dead Fish
Cardhouses; For My Grandfather, William Lillian, 1902-1982
The Coastal Route After Arguing
The Day That I Give In
February Morning
Foggy Afternoon In Cambridge
Folding
For My Daughter Who Has Gone To Study In Japan
I Brought My Tears To The Sea
In Birmingham, Michigan, While My Husband Consults
In Hiroshima
Lakewood, Nj, 1953
Meeting My Pen Pal Of Nine Years
Meeting You At La Grand' Place
Memory Of Skating In Winter
My Lover Returns Saying He Has Found A Wife
Night Passage For My Daughter
On The Garden State Parkway
Playing Violin In Seventh Grade
Preparing To Teach The Poetry Writing Workshop
Reading Haas During A Coastal Storm, Mid-november
Rowing On Lake Union, Spring, 1978
Thanksgiving, 1994
To My First Love, Jacques
Today Kuwano-san Is Called Kuwano-sensei, Teacher
Walking To School
Watching My Husband Meet His Birth Mother
When My Husband, Away On A Trip, Spoke ...... About A Friend's Divorce
While Buying A B-day Card For My Son Who's Just Gone To College
With Martha At Gig Harbor
Yartzeit; For Ida Cherin
Yarzeit Ii
Yussel Is Dead
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®
After Learning You've Moved To My City
After Love
After We Collected Treasures From The Beach And Forests
At The Ethnic Cemeteries..... After A Day As Poet-in-residence
Burying The Dead Fish
Cardhouses; For My Grandfather, William Lillian, 1902-1982
The Coastal Route After Arguing
The Day That I Give In
February Morning
Foggy Afternoon In Cambridge
Folding
For My Daughter Who Has Gone To Study In Japan
I Brought My Tears To The Sea
In Birmingham, Michigan, While My Husband Consults
In Hiroshima
Lakewood, Nj, 1953
Meeting My Pen Pal Of Nine Years
Meeting You At La Grand' Place
Memory Of Skating In Winter
My Lover Returns Saying He Has Found A Wife
Night Passage For My Daughter
On The Garden State Parkway
Playing Violin In Seventh Grade
Preparing To Teach The Poetry Writing Workshop
Reading Haas During A Coastal Storm, Mid-november
Rowing On Lake Union, Spring, 1978
Thanksgiving, 1994
To My First Love, Jacques
Today Kuwano-san Is Called Kuwano-sensei, Teacher
Walking To School
Watching My Husband Meet His Birth Mother
When My Husband, Away On A Trip, Spoke ...... About A Friend's Divorce
While Buying A B-day Card For My Son Who's Just Gone To College
With Martha At Gig Harbor
Yartzeit; For Ida Cherin
Yarzeit Ii
Yussel Is Dead
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®
